Restarting from Scratch

Question

My Macbook pro has been running slower and slower for quite a while.  I have just ordered Snow Leopard to upgrade and whilst at it, I figured now would be a good time to completely clean out the computer and start again.  I have lots of photos and music etc as well as some documents I need to keep, but otherwise not that much of massive significance.  Is there a step by step guide to what I need to do, to do a complete system reset and reinstall?  My only problem that I worry about is that I run an old iWork and iLife, which I no longer have the disks for - can i keep these?  Thanks for any help?

Answer 1

Because you do not have the discs to reinstall iLife or iWork you cannot erase your drive and start from scratch or you will lose both.  So you need to upgrade your system to Snow Leopard which does not erase the drive.
To clean up your existing system see the following:
Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility.  For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utilities are: Disk Warrior;  DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption; Disk Warrior 4.x is now Intel Mac compatible. TechTool Pro provides additional repair options including file repair and recovery, system diagnostics, and disk defragmentation.  TechTool Pro 4.5.1 or higher are Intel Mac compatible;  Drive Genius is similar to TechTool Pro in terms of the various repair services provided.  Versions 1.5.1 or later are Intel Mac compatible.
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) If this isn't the case, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep.  Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts had been significantly reduced in Tiger and Leopard.  These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard and should not be installed.
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive. As for virus protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. You can protect the computer easily using the freeware Open Source virus protection software ClamXAV. Personally I would avoid most commercial anti-virus software because of their potential for causing problems.
I would also recommend downloading the shareware utility TinkerTool System that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old logfiles and archives, clearing caches, etc.  Other utilities are also available such as Onyx, Leopard Cache Cleaner, CockTail, and Xupport, for example.
For emergency repairs install the freeware utility Applejack.  If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the commandline.  Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard.
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
Backuplist
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
iBackup
JaBack
Silver Keeper
MimMac
Retrospect
Super Flexible File Synchronizer
SuperDuper!
Synchronize Pro! X
SyncTwoFolders
Synk Pro
Synk Standard
Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance, optimization, virus protection, and backup and restore.
Additional suggestions will be found in Mac Maintenance Quick Assist.
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
After you do some maintenance your current system should be in decent shape for upgrading.  The next thing you need to do is make a backup.  I suggest you do that as follows.  You will need an external hard drive you can erase that will be used for the backup.
Clone using Restore Option of Disk Utility
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the destination volume from the left side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Check the box labeled Erase destination.
5. Select the destination volume from the left side list and drag it to the Destination entry field.
6. Select the source volume from the left side list and drag it to the Source entry field.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the Restore button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
You can then boot from the Snow Leopard DVD and follow the onscreen instructions for installing.  The installation will be an upgrade that preserves all your files.